Get rid of the 21 squares...?

[Sarxis]

Maybe it's time to do with the whole idea of founding a central city square and having a workable radius of squares around that city. Here's an idea:
Each square can have a unit of population settle onto it; certain limitations could apply depending on the square's terrain type and level of urban development. Now, instead of a settler unit founding a central city and having a radius extend from there, each unit of population would have to be individually moved out to the square to be worked (immigration?).
Now you may say, "Well that isn't very realisitic. Millions of people live together in large cities all over the world, all cramped together doing very specialized jobs. Not everyone can have their very own square to call their own." And I agree with you! That's why you can 'stack' units of population of top of each other to form large, crowded metropolis. Within these stacked 'city' squares is where your specialists reside. Let me explain (this could take a while).
Let us take our 21 squares, and let us start clean and fresh with no city, no people, and no improvements or development. What we have are raw resources and open land. Here comes our first settler who takes up residence on a nice, rich piece of land; the first settled square. Life is good, if not primeval, at this point, but soon enough our settled settler has procreated enough to spawn a whole new unit of population. Now this unit can either extract more resources from this same square (if available) or can do something specialized in this rural community (tax collector, entertainer, chimney sweep?). OR he can move onto another square. Now here is the trick; after a few millenia of this going on, soon enough you have filled up all 21 of the empty squares, and with nowhere to go and with a lot of these people not wanting to be a farmer or miner, they decide to start building 'cities'. They all move in together into one square and each one does something unique but neccesary to the GREAT CIRCLE of CIVILIZATION. One of them opens a factory and decides he will build things like tanks, transport ships, and dragoons. Another one or two of them become tax collectors (well, you really only need one tax collector to collct taxes in each region; how many do we really need to get the job done?), another decides they will open a supermarket.
Now the supermarket guy is important because without him, all of the other people in this city would have to rely on the food resources that are produced from the farmer that works the square that the city resides on. Our supermarket owner simply has the ability to get the food that is produced by the farmers working in the outlying rural squares and bring it to the city square where all of our very important specialists are busy doing their specialties (collecting taxes, building units, etc.). The more of these supermarket owners there are in the central city square, the farther their radius of procurement extends and the more specialist they can provide for. Thus, you no longer have everyone living in a central city hub- the 21 squares system implies that even your farmers and miners live in the city hub, and only go out during the day to work- but everyone lives where they work; farmers live in rural areas where there are farms, miners live in mining towns, and bankers and auto industry executives live downtown. ]
Of course, there would have to be a procurement specialist for each kind of resource (food, iron, minerals, what have you) and each unit of population could only meet the needs of only so many. All of this would have to be worked out and play tested, but this is my rough idea. Oh, and of course, there would have to be some cool looking 'city skyline' graphics to represent the different levels of population stacking.

[Gearyman]

Very interesting concept. I had previously thought of something in regards to the 21 square limit. Why have the limit at all? Is it possible to remove that limit and allow your city to grow to any (reasonable) size? I'm sure some limit would have to exist, but maybe as your city improves, it could also reveal more land that could be used for that city.

[War4ever]

Gearyman.... i like that concept...... it would be neat to see the city grow larger than 21 squares..... and sort of take over another cities unused raduis..... thats the drawback..... we space cities so close together that it would be detrimental unless they extended the radius to include the four diagonal corners as well.

[Father Beast]

This is an excellent idea. some form of this model would also allow for the merging of smaller towns into growing metropolitan areas without having to go through the trouble of disbanding the lesser cities.

[S. Kroeze]

Change the so called supermarket guy into some priests around a shrine, where the harvests are offered to a god who owns the land, while the priests organise irrigation- all the time seeking the guidance of the gods- and you have a model which more or less depicts what happened when the first civilizations started to develop!

Essentially this is a great idea!
In my opinion the 21 square model should disappear!

[OrangeSfwr]

I like the idea of defining the cities better. How about increasing the city's radius once they achieve a level 8/level 12 city (for Aqueduct and Sewer System). For example, a starting city should have a radius of 9 squares....

RRR
RCR
RRR

As they achieve the Aqueduct and above a level 8 city, give them another 12 resource squares and increase the actual city square to 9 squares....

RRR
RCCCR
RCCCR
RCCCR
RRR

And once the Sewer System is built, along with getting above level 12, give the city another row of external resources but keep the city cize the same....

RRR
RRRRR
RRCCCRR
RRCCCRR
RRCCCRR
RRRRR
RRR

This plan will only work, however, if map sizes are increased. Because how can one create a replica United States when Washington, Philadelphia, Boston, and New York City all occupy 2 squares! (The old Civ2 map)

The Civ3 map should be much bigger in a sense that cities take up the size of one city, not 4.

With this, some definition would be added to a civ's territory (don't you just HATE it when you have 2 cities and they're resource squares don't quite touch, and another civ comes and builds a city right between them?) Each city would be better defined and it would be harder for other Civs to get in your way.

But hey, it's just an idea.

[Father Beast]

Some consideration needs to be given to the fact that in these great megalopoli like New York, almost no land is used to feed the populace. Almost all is given over to production and commerce (and living space, of course). nearly all the food used is imported from outside the city. Thus there is no actual limit to population size based on food production. we need to have some ability for land controlled by one city to produce food to support another city (shades of the super science city), with the supporting city getting some sort of benefit in trade, like shields or something.
obviously I haven't thought this out completely, but I think this needs to be addressed

[Slingshot]

Good thoughts here!

Indeed, most cities in North America do not produce all the food / resources that they consume.

I think that cities should be able to mine/farm wherever they want, so long as they have the appropriate goods route (like a road, rail road, etc.) In fact, more than one city (within the same civ) should be able to work that single tile. A drawback would be, say, less resources per city per shared tile. The advantage would be less public works investment through the building of mines, advanced mines, etc.

The civ border could be anything one square away from any occupied tile.

As Gearyman said: "Why have a [21 square] limit at all?

I also think this is in the same spirit as Anunikoba's orginal suggestion - especially if loss of a worked tile equalled a corresponding loss of population.

[Father Beast]

Even though the land supporting a city isn't in the city radius (if it has one), the land has to be somewhere. Depending on the food transport ability, it could be some distance away. Civilizations are based on the cities, but cities are based on the land, which they have got right from the beginning.

[Youngsun]

I really like the idea of having farms and mines over my territory regardless of city presence.(Imperialism)

We do not live in the World which has well distributed cities all over the place and a city has limited radius to support its food and production.

City can be a centre of trade,science and production but not generally farming and mining. But all civ-style game has a city can do all the farming and mining.

I totally support the idea of abandoning 21 square thing. To do that we need to have an interface which can treat food and raw material nationally not city to city. WE WANNA PLAY SIMCIV NOT SIMCITY.

There should be a sense of territory which can tell us "this square belong to CivA and that square belong to CivB" The meeting point of other civ's territory will be the border. During later stage of game we may even claim the water square as our territory.

Farms and mines still can be built over our territory for more fertile or resource rich
ground. Cities should be built with regard of potential commerce or production. For example, if we can find a site that can link many other civs' communication or trade that will be a great site for a city.

It will be great to have large area of fertile or resource rich ground with some places which have no resource at all. Current game's resource seed is too evenly distributed like a net. We need to have uneven distribution of resource seed. This will trigger many territorial war for resource.

CIVA 37 square owned(many fertile squares)
city:2 farms:14 mines:2

CIVB 12 square owned(many exellent seaport sites)
city:6 farms:1 mines:1

CIVC 22 square owned(quite mountainous but resource rich)
City:3 farms:2 mines:6

Obiviously CivA can be quite self-supporting in terms of food and even the surplus of food and can be valuable trade commodity.

CivB looks like suffering from lack of food but she has excellent sites(access to sea!) for trade her position lays between CivA and CivB so she has most of benefit from the trade by buying the food from civA to support herself and to sell the remains to civC.

CivC buys food from merchant civB then sells surplus of raw material to civB. CivB can sell the raw material directly to farming civA with charge of extra transportation cost or she can make trade goods from the resource then sell to both CivA and CivC at even higher price. Cities are essential to produce such goods due to presence of skilled craftsmen in cities.

In the end, merchant civB will be the winner why? they will have more benefit from the trade and more cities too. Cities will boost science and production then CivB will be able to maintain it's own fleet(expensive to maintain) With storng fleet, CivB will dominate more trade so she can be mighty empire.

CivA might try to offset the disadvantage by having massive levies of peasant army from its vast rural area. War can be break out between these large peasant army from CivA and professional citizen army from CivB.

CivB has drawbacks too. Many barbarians will be tempted by booties of CivB.(constant threat from outside invasion) CivA and CivC might gang up agianst CivB to end its dominance over the region.(being a ham of sandwich)
[This message has been edited by Youngsun (edited February 28, 2000).]

[Slingshot]

With this sort of thinking, it would be good to be able to merge cities together somehow.

Either make them a province, or let one "city" be present over a number of nonadjacent squares. I am thinking about book keeping, here. If you have one produciton "zone" with scattered population and resource tiles, it would be much easier to handle. This would also help the beginning of the game, where it is beneficial to have many smaller settlements that are closer together. In the future, these settlements would become a province, which would reduce the micromanagement as you look at conquering regions that are a lot farther away...

[Youngsun]

Hello Sligshot.

That's exactly what I wanna see "no more micro-management!". whatever the result are either production zone or province.
[This message has been edited by Youngsun (edited February 29, 2000).]

[Adm.Naismith]

Transport was a huge problem in the past. Mainly the villages ends working for the main town of the province.
I bet the 21 square limit in CIV was there to simulate that limit, and 21 square was a (very limited) reproduction of province itself.
Trading pacts with an intermediation: well Youngsun, nice idea!

It shoul be an option if you have alternative trading routes (no caravans units, please, only trade pacts), but the longer are more expensive, so you can balance between doing your commerce by yourself, pay a fee to the nation on faster route, declare war and conquer your direct way to the commerce

If this systemn use the number of moves needed to connect the two nearest cities, having a direct route or Rail road add another use of them: you have a point to build up a road between your territory to gain more probability of trading fee income, but you need to guard it because it can become an easy way to strike deep into your country if a neighboor become an enemy.

I agree that CIV III should do a better job about city growing. I also think that the game should be more a lab than a perfect historical reproduction, so I will like to have a game balanced as well to try a different cities model: distributed small towns against actual "metropolis", with less pollution problems (if commuting can be avoided), more happyness, more expensive service (more duplication of building should be needed). I like the idea of have the same opportunity of a success playing with different models, because a SIM can be more a toy as LEGO(tm) than a restricted ruled game.

I red how often designers privilege some models they like, as public transport on SimCity 1 or democracy in CIV, and they unbalanced the game to make it more easy to win within that path. Yes, I know some players win also with other settings and "paths", but I suppose it happens more because weak AI than by really balanced opportunity.

This concept look like more "educational" than "scientific experimenting", and I will be happy to see Firaxis better consider this "more open" approach.

------------------
Adm.Naismith AKA mcostant

[Dienstag]

I agree that the 21-square city should go. If we go with the idea that there is an actual population in each square (not all packed in the cities) and that everyone has a specific job (no one has to work on the farm this year, in the mine next year, and be an Elvis the year after that) then the game is much more realistic.

If every square has it's own population and resources, a huge part of the game will be micromanaging how the extra food and resources get to the city from the country. Hopefully, some really good AI will be able to do this for us based on some supply and demand model. The player might then only control international trade, based on whatever's left (if any).

And while we're at it, why have units of population? I know I'm not the only one who'd like to see actual popualtions. This would probably really help with modeling popualtion growth or migration. And when a square has enough people in it, you give it a city name (assuming they've built houses there, at least). I don't like the idea of cities merging (except for maybe Buda and Pest, which are on either side of a river) but suburbs would be both cool and realistic.

You guys have some great ideas, and it's a pleasure reading them.

Dienstag

[Youngsun]

Hello Dienstag

Unit of population! that's interesting.
But wouldn't that creat micro-management problem as well to control each unit of population? More detailed info needed!


Hello Adam

I agree city was intended to be the reproduction of province and the 21 square thing may represent the limit of transportation of past times. But since there is always same limit(21 square) regardless of how advanced current transportation and communication tech we hold, the limit makes me really irritating.

A city should be a centre of trade and production rather than farming and mining.

The problem I face with current game is that if I wanna use a fertile or resource rich square I must build a city. Then the city radius will take care of everyting. Is city that necessary to run farms or mines? Eventually, the map will be filled with cities which are evenly distributed to avoid an overlap.(What an ugly sight!)

Then how would we simulate highly urbarnsied
countries like Japan? Do they produce enough food for self-supporting? No! They import. And many cities are not self-sufficient in terms of food supply. They consume food and natural resource then produce goods and service which lead trade and advances of science.

I saw someone's post that shows the frustration of not feeling a running an empire but federation of cities. This is true since we have no total production,unit support,trade,food supply and resource gathering. Civ should learn from Imperialsim about the running an empire in terms of total economy not individual city based economy.

In Imperialsim, right infra-structure is so important to make an empire grow. The capacity of transportation decides how much we can gather resources and food then produce goods for trade.

If one point of T.capacity can take care of one point of any production or food supply, we can make an example like this;

CivA
city:5 Farms:5 Mines:5 T.capacity:20 all-railed infra(all connected)

CivB
City:10 Farms:10 Mines:10 T.capacity:10 half-railed infra(all connected)

CivC
City:20 Farms:20 Mines:20 T.capacity:5 No-railed infra(half connected by dirt road)

If we apply game logic from civ-style game, the winner is absolutely CivC right? More cities,farms and mines mean more production.
So simple isn't it? But if we apply the concept from Imperialism the most efficient civ will be CivA despite being a small civ with less cities.

CivC has neglected its infra developement and spent much time on expanding its number of cities,farms and mines but this civ can not make efficient use of these resources due to lack of its transportation capacity.
what's worse? it even has no railways.

CivB has spent fair amount of time for do more infra development but still not fully capable of carrying all the goods within her territory.

CivC made big deal of investing on infra development and became most efficinet user of all the resources within her territory. The extra 5 points of T. capacity might be used for military unit transport or further expansion of its farms or mines.

Whether it is production zone or province we need to tidy up the scattered cities,farms and mines into neat report form like interface for easy control.

ProvinceA(15 Square big)
Cities:1 Farms:7 Mines:1

Province:B(12 square big)-one of cities is capital
Cities:6 Farms:2 Mines:3

Province:c(23 square big)
cities:2 Farms:2 Mines:6

So if we click province chart, proniceA,B and C will pop up. then we click provinceA it will list the details of cities,farms and mines in ProvinceA

ProvinceA

FarmA(Pop size 2 food produced:4)
FarmB(Pop size 3 Food produced:6)
CityA(Pop size 10 Production:50 shields per turn, currently building bank)
MineA(Pop size 3 resource gathered:8)
.
.
etc.

Farms and Mines should have pop limit. City growth should rely on how much it can import from farms or mines. If there are some resource deficiency in your civ you may have to make decision to import more resources from other resource rich civs.

You may have surplus of food supply then its time to sell to other hungry civs which have not enough farms. Radius of each province should be customisable with limit(40~80 sqaures perhaps?)

Unit support should be done nationally not city based. Each city will have its own production capability which will be summed up to total production of that civ.

Points
1.Infra development should be the key for the growth-may solve that notorious ICS problem?
2.Province radius should be customisable with appropriate transportation and communication tech.

I hope we can later see Japanese isle filled with cities(all squares),Ukranian field filled with farms or Ural mountains filled with mines.